Such a precious promise — the one who heard it only wanted to hold it close, to keep it safely tucked away.

The thick fog over the square slowly dispersed. The sky had turned fully bright. The flag-raising ceremony ended, and the crowd scattered in all directions.

Nan Chu suddenly recalled a line from a script she had read a few days ago.

Liu Yingying’s life never received a response from that battle-worn general. The rest of her story was one of solitary devotion — she guarded her loneliness until the end of her days, while that handsome general defended his homeland, dying long ago on the battlefield without leaving her so much as a parting thought. Only a mound of yellow earth remained. And until her dying breath, she never knew that on one rain-soaked afternoon, the general had come. He’d stood outside the narrow alley, holding a paper-oil umbrella, watching her from afar — seeing her weave through the lanes in the same qipao she’d worn when they first met, her figure full of graceful allure, laughing with the woman next door until her eyes curved into crescents, humming a little tune while she cut fabric, her features gentle and understated, yet every movement and gesture full of charm.

On her deathbed, Liu Yingying wrote a line on paper and entrusted it to a servant to deliver to the general’s residence:

— A lifetime spent in battle: who shared my vigil? Rivers and mountains witnessed all — the bond ran deep, the devotion true.

It was a story of tragic nobility. She performed it calmly from beginning to end, yet somehow moved Xi Gu to tears — the girl stood beside her, dabbing at her eyes and sobbing quietly. “I think you brought Liu Yingying to life.”

Perhaps it was because of Lin Luxiao that she had suddenly developed a certain self-awareness as a soldier’s wife. Liu Yingying’s every smile, every gesture — she understood it better than anyone.

· · ·

Lin Luxiao drove Nan Chu to a breakfast place called Zhang’s, tucked into a nearby alley.

He used to love coming here after the flag-raising ceremony — a bowl of warm soybean milk and some pan-fried buns. The owner was a chatty sort who had run this shop for decades, firmly rooted at this alley entrance all these years. When he recognized a regular, he’d greet them warmly, then glance over at Nan Chu with a meaningful look. “Not bad, kid.”

He looked at Lin Luxiao the way he’d look at an old friend — he set down what he was doing, handed it off to the assistant beside him, rubbed his flour-dusted hands on his apron, and fished two cigarettes from his pocket, holding them out. “Haven’t seen you in a while. What’ve you been up to lately?”

Lin Luxiao took them, set them aside, and didn’t light up. “Working.”

The owner chuckled. “A few days back I saw a fire truck pass by out front, and I told my wife — if my son could be even half as capable as Luxiao, I wouldn’t be worrying myself sick every day.”

He turned and called for someone to bring over two boxes of pan-fried buns and soybean milk.

Lin Luxiao smiled, humble enough: “I can’t handle big things. All I do is add bricks and mortar.” He glanced over at Nan Chu and introduced her. “This is my girlfriend.”

Nan Chu still had her mask on. She gave a sweet smile, eyes curving into crescents. “Hello.”

Just looking at the two of them — both good-looking, their energies matching perfectly, a genuinely well-matched pair — the owner felt a pang of envy, wishing his own son could be this easy to deal with. His gaze lingered on the girl’s pretty little face, and his admiration only grew. “What a beautiful girl — looks so slender, though. Eat more today. Getting a bit of weight on is good — better for having babies.”

At that, Lin Luxiao immediately dropped a pan-fried bun into her bowl, his expression unchanged. “Eat up. Let’s produce a big chubby son.”

Nan Chu glared at him.

Lin Luxiao ignored her, tasted a bite, and chatted warmly with the owner. “Been a long stretch since I’ve been here — your cooking’s gotten even better.”

The owner was pleased. “You’re always the one with the smooth tongue.”

· · ·

By the end of the meal, Nan Chu had eaten very little. To maintain her figure — she had a print shoot tomorrow — and she was the type whose body retaliated the moment she ate one bite too many.

Finished eating, she propped her chin on her hand and watched the man across from her eat.

Lin Luxiao ate quickly — a habit formed in the army, no doubt. He swallowed two or three buns, took a sip of soybean milk, chewed a couple of times, glanced up at her, then shoved another bun into his mouth. “Full?”

Not full, but she couldn’t eat any more — her body was sounding the alarm.

Nan Chu pouted and shook her head.

Lin Luxiao smiled and picked one up, holding it out to her. “Open.”

Nan Chu propped her chin on her hand and obediently opened her mouth.

He smiled at the corner of his mouth. “See? You can still eat.”

“You’re feeding me — so I can eat one more. But just one, or I’ll be puffy in tomorrow’s photos—”

Before she finished speaking, Lin Luxiao had already fed her three. The girl’s mouth was stuffed full; she kept saying no-no, yet when he reached over with another one, she still obediently opened wide. Lin Luxiao set down his chopsticks with a grin, eyebrow arched, a smug little smirk. “Perfect — if you’re too puffy to shoot tomorrow, then you won’t have to. I don’t like those shoots of yours anyway. What even is that.”

Nan Chu froze, shot to her feet, and ran outside.

The owner, thinking the two had had a quarrel, poked his head out from the kitchen and called out in consolation: “Easy there, kid — a girlfriend that pretty, if you drive her away, where are you going to find another one like that?”

Lin Luxiao paid the bill and went after her. The girl had just swallowed what was in her mouth. He strolled over, hands in his pockets, and reached out to ruffle her hair. “Wasn’t trying to upset you.”

Neither of them was a fool. Nan Chu knew perfectly well how much Lin Luxiao disliked those print shoots of hers. The bolder ones — she hadn’t even shown him yet. If he saw those, knowing his temperament, he’d probably fume like an incense burner with nine steam vents.

She clicked her tongue. “Lin Luxiao.”

The man pulled her toward the center of the square, naturally stepping to the outside, placing her on the inner side. He made a quiet sound of acknowledgment.

The two had known each other for a long time, and the way things were going now, if she were just a little more forward, they might even have a child in their arms by next year — but that wasn’t the concern right now.

“Be honest with me.”

“About what?”

It was not yet seven in the morning. The fog had not fully lifted. The square was filling with more and more pedestrians; the city was teetering on the edge of waking.

The two walked hand in hand, unhurried.

“Were you already… interested in me when I was sixteen?” she asked, phrasing it delicately.

The man stopped walking. A sound of disdain came from above — scornful, deeply contemptuous. “Hmph! At sixteen you weren’t even fully grown yet—”

“Then when did you start liking me? Don’t tell me it was the moment you saw me in the army!”

Women seemed particularly fixated on questions like these. Back then, Shen Mu had lectured him at length with similar examples —

When did you start liking me? What were you wearing the first time we met? Who’s prettier, me or so-and-so? What did you and your ex do together, how far did it go?

Fortunately for Lin Luxiao, he had no ex-girlfriends, so the comparison question could be skipped entirely.

Exactly when had he started to like her?

He genuinely had no answer. He’d lain awake one night with the lights off, thinking about it for a long time, and realized he cared tremendously about this girl. That same night, he’d gone online and looked up all sorts of news about her. The tabloids, piecing things together from here and there, had given him a rough picture of who she’d been over these twenty-some years — he’d even read the outlandish gossip claiming her father was a gangster.

Yet the more he read, the more his heart ached. So young, yet how much had she already endured?

But then he thought — thank goodness. She’d found him.

He picked her up, slung her into the car, tossed her inside, and leaned against the door. “When I was little, I loved guns, tanks, planes. My father took me to a military museum and let me touch one. I went home crying and begging to join the army. My father said army life was hard — you had to endure suffering ordinary people would never face. I didn’t believe him at the time. When I got to military school, I understood — it really was hard. Rolling in the mud was nothing. During field survival training, I was captured while carrying a rifle and spent two days submerged in cold water — I endured all of it. But I’ve never once regretted enlisting. I’m a single-minded person. No matter when I started liking something, once I like it, I can like it for a very, very long time—”

He shut the car door, walked around the front hood, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “As for you—” He paused, started the engine, and gave a cold little snort. “You’ve left quite a trail of so-called evidence.”

Nan Chu thought about it carefully. The “trail of evidence” he mentioned was nothing more than the rumored flings the media had invented — Ran Dongyang, Jiang Ge, that sort — all fabricated connections with no real basis.

“All of that was made up.”

Lin Luxiao didn’t care. He patted the steering wheel, glanced at her, and curled his lip with a cocky little smile — the meaning unmistakable: Doesn’t matter. My car’s already blocked off everything behind it.

That said, Nan Chu’s circumstances were genuinely a bit complicated. On the drive back, she probed cautiously: “Ahem — let’s call it an academic discussion.”

Lin Luxiao glanced at her, a sense of foreboding rising.

“For instance — what’s the maximum level of… exposure you’d be comfortable with? I have a role coming up, and I need to discuss the parameters with the director. Semi-nudity, full nudity, kissing scenes with a male actor — real kiss, stand-in angle, or deep kiss — and bed scenes: full body on display or partial coverage—”

The car braked hard and pulled to the side of the road. Nan Chu lurched forward, then bounced back into her seat. She turned her head and looked — the man beside her did not look pleased.

The two of them had always skirted around this subject, never once discussed it. Nan Chu hadn’t done many shoots before — mostly supporting roles — so the issue had never come up. But now that offers were coming in more frequently, like the role of Liu Yingying, there was a scene involving full nudity. As an eighteenth-tier actress, telling the director she wanted a body double would probably get her killed on the spot — besides, the director had cast her precisely for her figure.

And clearly, Lin Luxiao — a man with a slight streak of alpha possessiveness — had some resistance to this question.

Lin Luxiao had a particular flaw: even when he was jealous, he would never in a million years admit he was jealous. So, even though Nan Chu’s question had made his mood plummet and his face fall, his mouth still said: “Do whatever you want.”

And with that, he killed the engine — who knows where he found the nerve — unlocked the center console, grabbed his cigarettes and lighter from the storage box, pushed open the door. “I’m stepping out for a smoke.”

Nan Chu said “okay,” and said nothing more. She didn’t get out either — she sat obediently in the car and waited for him.

One cigarette later, mood adjusted. When he got back in the car, the atmosphere had settled somewhat.

Nan Chu had an afternoon print shoot — a few hours long. Lin Luxiao drove her directly to the set. Nan Chu unclipped her seatbelt and asked him, “Call me when you finish?”

He leaned back in his seat, lazily scrolling through his phone. A quiet sound of acknowledgment.

Nan Chu understood — he was probably still put out.

· · ·